Interborough Express News
Good news about the Interborough Express proposal! The MTA’s 20-Year Needs Assessment gave excellent marks to the Interborough Express Light Rail Transit proposal, saying, “This project scores well in many metrics, including cost effectiveness. It serves a large number of new and total riders, especially from equity areas, and provides connections to many other transit lines, using an existing right-of-way.” The pertinent pages of the Assessment and Appendix are attached below. (The bad news is that it is still light rail).
An interesting revelation of the Assessment is that the Interborough Express (IBX) light rail daily ridership prediction has been increased again, this time to 118,700. (I am assuming that is average weekday ridership—why doesn’t the MTA make it clear?) That is a 35% increase over the light rail weekday ridership of 87,800 predicted in the January 2022 IBX Interim Report. They believed then that three 95-foot, articulated light railcars per train would be needed at peak periods. The 35% increase suggests four such cars would be needed. Train length would be 380-feet. Imagine a train of that length turning onto and off of Metropolitan Avenue.
The MTA recently provided me with an additional, detailed document about ridership, which is also attached below. Although undated, I conclude that it is recent because it predicts the same light rail daily ridership of 118,700. Interestingly, it also includes a daily ridership prediction of 123,860 for conventional rail.
On August 2, 2023, Governor Hochul announced that consultant firm WSP USA was chosen to perform the “environmental review” for Interborough Express. That involves a more detailed development of the plan, which is necessary to secure federal funding. Shortly thereafter, I made a Freedom of Information Law request for the agreement. I received a copy on October 27th, which I have attached below. Among the interesting revelations are the maximum cost of 8.1 million dollars for work by WPS and its subcontractors, and a projected completion date of January 31, 2026.
In the Governor’s press release about the choice of WSP USA, MTA Chairman Lieber was quoted as saying, ““The Interborough Express will provide better access to jobs, education and economic opportunity for well over 100,000 New Yorkers in Queens and Brooklyn.” Whoops! Because most people will travel two ways each day and ridership numbers are based on one-way trips, the MTA’s predicted daily ridership of 118,700 works out to serving under 60,000 people.
Personally, I believe that, with 900,000 people now living within ½ mile of the IBX line and 1-in-2 zero car households in that area, serving “well over 100,000 New Yorkers in Queens and Brooklyn” and a weekday ridership of over 200,000 would be possible if subway-type service is provided on the IBX line. Not with light rail.